A Sweet View: The Making of an English Idyll

Description

A Sweet View explores how writers and artists in the nineteenth century shaped the English countryside as a partly imaginary idyll, with its distinctive repertoire of idealised scenery: the village green, the old country churchyard, hedgerows and cottages, scenic variety concentrated into a small compass, snugness and comfort. The book draws on a very wide range of contemporary sources, and features some of the key makers of the 'South Country' rural idyll, including Samuel Palmer, Myles Birket Foster and Richard Jefferies. The legacy of the idyll still influences popular perceptions of the essential character of a certain kind of English landscape - indeed for Henry James that imagery constituted 'the very essence of England' itself. The countryside idyll forged over a century ago is still with us today.

Malcolm Andrews is professor emeritus of Victorian and visual studies at the University of Kent and was for thirty years the editor of the Dickensian. He is the author of many books, including Landscape and Western Art.

"In this examination of changing perceptions of English landscape, combining meticulous scholarship with new and original readings of a galaxy of writers and artists, Andrews guides us from the Georgian fondness for neat fields and tree-lined hedges, through Picturesque excursions, Victorian retrospection, and Edwardian nature-writing, to uncover the enduring yet illusory image of 'Englishness,' distilled in church spires, cottages, and village greens. Subtle, engaging, and perceptive, and wonderfully illustrated, A Sweet View is a book to return to again and again." -- Jenny Uglow, OBE, author of biographies of Edward Lear, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Thomas Bewick, as well as the award-winning "The Lunar Men" "A really delightful survey of what is now a desperately relevant subject: how we should treasure an ever more threatened English landscape." -- Sir Simon Jenkins, former chairman of the National Trust, author of "England's 100 Best Views" "Andrews brings a wealth of scholarship to the currently inflamed idea of Englishness as portrayed by English artists and described by English authors. It is-a rare word of praise to use in this context-a beautiful book both to read and to look at. Above all, relish." -- John Sutherland, Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus of Modern English Literature, University College London